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Fetus models at Career Day: Hmmm

Anyone could see that one booth at the Career Day for Largo Middle School students was out of place. A flat black case sat on the mostly bare table at the booth. Strapped to the black fabric inside the open case were four tiny plastic models of human fetuses.

Students who approached the table were told that the models represented fetuses at seven, eight, nine and 10 weeks of gestation. Students were given two pamphlets - The Truth About Abstinence and the other a promotional brochure for crisis pregnancy counseling services at the Pregnancy Center of Pinellas County.

Also on the table was a larger brochure about the Pregnancy Center that contained Bible quotations and made references to the Pregnancy Center's "Prayer Warrior Team" and the center's expansion plans.

The Pregnancy Center obviously did not attend the Career Day to talk to students about jobs and career planning, and protestations to the contrary by president and chief executive officer Sol Pitchon simply come across as disingenuous. The center clearly was there to deliver its antiabortion doctrine to 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds under the protective cover of an off-campus school event.

The Pinellas County School District is neutral on the subject of abortion, as it should be, and does not want those who subscribe to either the antiabortion stance or the prochoice position to go into classrooms and lecture schoolchildren. But the Largo Middle School Career Day, an annual event, was held at the Largo Cultural Center and was sponsored and organized by the Largo/Mid-Pinellas Chamber of Commerce. The school district allowed Largo Middle students to leave school to attend the special event, which is designed to open their eyes to the wide variety of career options before they begin planning their high school programs.

While other exhibitors at Career Day handed out information about their businesses and answered students' questions about jobs, the Pregnancy Center displayed its fetus models and fliers about sex and pregnancy. The chamber, caught off-guard, did not ask the center to close its booth, but says it will have to examine Career Day participants' plans more closely in the future. School district officials, also unaware of what the Pregnancy Center planned until it was too late, are talking to school administrators to make sure they know the rules about distribution of materials to students.

Did the Pregnancy Center feel free to bring its fetus models, Bible verses and antiabortion message into a school-sanctioned event because it was off campus, or because of its special standing with the Pinellas School District?

The Pregnancy Center, a nonprofit Christian organization staffed primarily with volunteers, receives public tax dollars to teach a sexual abstinence program in Pinellas schools. The Pregnancy Center's abstinence instructors must be approved by the school district and cannot discuss abortion or birth control with students.

That the Pregnancy Center did an end run around that rule during the Largo Career Day should put Pinellas County school officials on notice: This group bears watching.

[Last modified February 9, 2005, 00:43:19]